Molten Metal
by CelticQuailKnight
Summary: Meta Knight recalls the moment in his life when his mind first became one with the mind of his sword, when flesh and metal melted together until each became a part of the other. (This story is Gameverse and made up completely of headcanons. It also contains one of my many FCs.)


HEY BIG DISCLAIMER :D

This entire story is a giant, ridiculous headcanon, and, unless things change, this IS canon to the rest of my writing. It is NOT, however, meant to be interpreted as canon in any other way, and as I mentioned in the summary, this is Gameverse, (like all of my fics currently uploaded!) So. Please I just really don't want some reviewer to show up like "tHIs is wRonG iT's nOt hoW hE GOt gaLaxIa iN The AnImE!111!1!1" X'DDD If that happens, I will be sad XD This is literally just what I want to happen for my 'verse and my take on things, and you're allowed to disagree, just... don't tell me it's wrong lol

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It was not a moment easily forgotten.

Even still, certain details had blurred. He knew the room. He could think of exactly where he'd been standing there, and exactly what it had looked like, for he had been there both before, and since.

But when he thought back to that moment itself, the world, everything around him seemed to succumb to a haze, and grow blurry.

Warm or cold, had it been? He didn't know. Dark or light? To the day, he remained rather unsure. It could have been either. It could have been both, somehow. But it mattered little, for burned into the furthest recesses of his mind, forever ingrained, perhaps entombed there, was that short, yet endless stretch of time, when, once again in his life, everything had changed. And everything else about the time and place became trivial.

He remembered his arm, his gloved hand, reaching as if in slow motion. Thoughts, worries, fluttered throughout his mind. He'd known the stories. He'd known the truth.

What awaited him was indescribable pain.

...Or... should he be profoundly unlucky...

Death.

It was extremely unlikely, but his mind couldn't help but hinge on that possibility.

He vaguely registered how his hand shook. The tremors spread slowly up his arm, but he forced himself to keep reaching out.

He had to.

A Scion was needed. And he had been among those chosen to try.

Why him? Out of everyone else? He knew that apart from the few of his cousins that had somehow been excited, most of them had thought the same things he did. They hadn't wanted to do it. They hadn't thought it would turn out to be them, and it hadn't, just as he thought that there was no chance of it being him, and… he knew it his heart that it wouldn't. He didn't think that he should have been included with them, anyways. He couldn't see himself as in any way the logical choice for the Halcyon Knight to make.

He was more of a disappointment to the family than anything. Wasn't he? Smaller, weaker. Never quite as strong as his elder cousins, never able to keep up with them. Sickly, he'd been called. And he was. Deformed, or broken, would have been whispered behind his back, if anyone had dared to voice what they thought of him.

They _did_ think things like that. He saw it in their faces, saw it in their eyes. Never was it spoken, for even for all he was, Meta Knight was still, technically, a lord. He was nobility, indeed he was descended from the Halcyon, himself, and generations further back, of course, from Umbra. One did not insult members of that family line where they could hear them. Not if they wished to remain in one piece, and with their honor intact.

But that didn't change the fact that it was the truth. He _was_… abnormal. At the least, he was an oddity. This was beyond dispute.

For a moment, as he recalled the strange interest that his lord had taken in him, he wondered if that, in itself, was the reason. Oddities were things to be studied, after all.

But what sort of leader could he possibly make? What sort of leader could his lord think he would turn out to be? The Halcyon Knight was many things, but certainly he was no fool. But what did he see in him? What could he see… in Meta?

It took a second or two, but he realized he'd stopped. Frozen, save for the shaking of his hand. The hand that was a mere inch away from fate.

He swallowed.

He knew, he knew that everything he was feeling was plain on his face. All the raw emotion that fought every instant to overtake his irises was barely held at bay, rolling across their white surfaces in loosely contained shimmers. He longed achingly for his mask, for the sense of security it provided. If he had it, he could hide. He could hide from the knight standing imposingly before him, watching him with the cold eyes of a hawk. He could hide, too, from himself. But he didn't have it.

Not that it really mattered.

The Halcyon Knight could read him regardless, plain as day. Nothing was hidden from him.

Just as nothing was hidden from his sword, resting between them, bold and brazen. Challenging. Threatening.

Again, Meta Knight swallowed, his white eyes never leaving the object standing traitorously beautiful before him. His heart pounded distantly as a cold, twisting thing burrowed into his stomach and stayed there.

He was confused, and afraid, and… he was almost angry, but he was a knight, and if he was ordered by his lord, if he was told that he must do this thing, then he would do it. It could confuse him, make him feel fear, anger him. But he would do it, out of loyalty if nothing else.

He dared not take his eyes off the sword, lest they wander upwards until they collided with the stare of the white one. It was not, he knew, (and resented), a stare that he could handle.

So he steeled his body and his mind.

He braced himself for the pain he _knew_ was coming.

And out of obedience, Meta Knight closed his hand around the hilt.

That moment of contact... was where the memory blurred and then changed, seeming different, perhaps clearer, each time he called it forth. It did not dull with age as memories tend to. If anything, it merely grew stronger, reinforced with each recalling.

It was as if, for an instant, his hand had closed itself around a burning coal. A white-hot slab of sparking metal pulled straight from a forge. The heart of a star.

The electricity shot through his body, burning through each muscle, straight to the bone, lighting up his core.

Part of him wanted to scream, wanted for his hand to propel the thing away. But that split-second was gone in a flash, and he knew he couldn't make a sound, utter a whisper, move a muscle, as his body stopped burning. He stood frozen. Was he standing? Or did he float, drifting numbly in some place of dazzling, cold light, kept alive by the vibrant heat that had taken over his body. It'd stopped hurting as quickly as it started, thank the stars, and now it was something steadily warm, breathing, alive, coursing through him in waves, traveling across his body as if he were made of air, and heat were sound. And as he listened in silence, he heard it.

There _was_ a sound.

Something humming, almost singing, but without voice. A tone. A golden vibration that crossed and hatched in a roiling surf, dancing brightly over his skin. A thousand colors in his head, chanting, building, rising.

It pierced through him, cutting like a knife, but this time, there was no pain. There was no pain at all.

This was a place where one couldn't be hurt, he thought. After all, for the first time in his life, Meta Knight stared wide-eyed into blinding, ethereal light, brighter than any light should be, brighter than any light that had ever hurt him, and found that despite it… he could see.

Little was there to grace his vision but clouds of nebulous nothing, shapes forming but dissipating before he could make them out.

But he looked down and saw the gold that had needled its way into his chest. He felt the unearthly warmth being sewn into every fiber of his being. It filled him up completely, from his wing tips to his core, so powerfully strong, so endless, that he worried it might rise up and tear him apart. He lacked the strength to contain it. It was indomitable, this thing, regardless of its light. It carried such a weight, a pressure, and it grew hotter and hotter until he saw gold everywhere. Then orange. Then red.

The heat dulled his senses, glazed over his mind. It was almost the familiar thrum of a fever, burning through him. It broke in a wave of scarlet, and then he was almost falling, though utterly unafraid. When the wave broke, and the red engulfed him fully, like water closing over his head, and then everything grew dark.

The light. It was inside him, now. He saw it blaze through his veins in streaks, his whole body was framed by a soft, pulsing glow, like a heartbeat seen rippling through his skin.

The world was now black and quiet. Then, again it changed.

Out of nowhere, the dark became speckled with stars. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. And with the light of each one, something flickered over his vision. Eyes, pairs of eyes that appeared and vanished too fast to really be seen. And another sound, a new sound. A murmuring, fluttering sound of mingled voices, light and soft, grazing delicately over his ears. They whispered, fervent, excited…

...Happy?

He couldn't make out their words, but there was something… almost celebratory. Like a ghostly party in someone's honor. He could almost see it; some of the stars and eyes coalescing into wisps, spinning around him, buzzing brightly into his head, the colors of greetings and welcomes and some strange sense of belonging… Like wandering into a group of one's long-lost family, or unexpectedly bumping into an old friend.

It was warm. It was safe.

And from nowhere, from beyond the void in which he drifted, Meta Knight felt a connection.

It was something new, something from the outside.

Something rolling towards him and the lights, in a dark, powerful wave. In an instant the lights scattered in retreat, and the dark mass struck him like a thunderbolt.

It coiled round his form, morphing and twisting, very much alive, thrumming with energy, something that could not, would not, be tamed. But while he felt its power, felt its strength pressing inwards upon him, he knew, impossibly, that he was in no danger.

He could never be in danger here.

The great dark thing was curious. It seemed to inspect him, probing deep into his mind, cautiously, almost gently, but with purpose. It felt like… it was looking for something, sifting through his essence, searching for… what?

Then without warning, it surged into him, latching itself around something inside him, something deep. It descended down into his core, engulfing it tightly.

And for the first time since touching the hilt of the sword, Meta Knight heard a voice clearly.

The dark thing coiled round him tighter and tigher, collecting his very being into its clutches, and to him or to no one, he didn't know, it spoke one, forceful, inarguable word;

_**MINE.**_

And with that, it spiraled up and out of him in a rush, surging away, back to wherever it came, and left him floating in its wake, as the lights from before all returned in a flurry.

They were brighter and their voices were clearer, and as he watched, they started merging into one, the buzzing, chiming calls of their songs morphing together, first into some amalgamate noise, then synchronizing quickly, becoming harmonious, beautifully singular until… suddenly all was still.

_Hello._

The voice was monotonous, smooth, and effortlessly calm. But Meta Knight could feel all around him that it was happy.

_I have been waiting for you._

Then with a flash and a jolt, Meta Knight opened his eyes.

He gasped, looking around the room in shock, eyes pulsing, heart pounding, and growing aware that his body was wracked with pain. He sagged, head drooping, wings lowering weakly to the floor, never mind how cold it was, and for a moment, that was all he could do as he forced himself to breathe and willed himself to stay standing.

When he pulled himself up, he realized, amazedly, that his hand… was still tight around the sword.

The hilt was sparking, tiny threads of electricity that jumped between the pommel and the guard, the leather and his hand, dancing before his eyes. But his hand wasn't the only one there.

The white knight, the Halcyon Knight, had gripped the sword, too. They clasped it together, the energy being shared between them, until the old knight pulled his hand away, and the crackles of electricity dissipated. Meta Knight looked at him, mouth slightly agape, then back at the sword, then back at him, then back, almost against his will, at the sword.

"Meta," the Halcyon said, voice suddenly richer than Meta Knight thought he'd ever heard it, golden stare suddenly more alive than he'd ever seen it, "You have done it."

"M-My lord?"

"You've succeeded, son of my sons," the Halcyon explained warmly, "You have taken the right to rule as your own. You… are my Scion."

With those words, his golden eyes washed over into a bright, sky blue, and his whole body language shifted from unreadably cold, to radiating pride. It was as if a vast weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, as he regarded with pride, perhaps the most unlikely of his descendants, whose small hand still locked on the sword.

"Release it, for a moment, Scion." He ordered, and Meta Knight nodded dumbly, his mind catching on the title, letting his hand slip weakly from the grip, and feeling a sudden, dizzying emptiness as he did so. The pain, deep and aching, returned.

His arm… it hurt like the rest of him, but worse. It was from the electricity, of course; it had run through his entire body, causing the muscles of his arm and hand to forcefully contract, not allowing him to let go. He held his hand up, balled it into a fist, then flexed it open.

"It is a bit large, for you." The bigger knight was saying, and he took the sword in his own hand, pulled it from the floor, and held it up. For a moment, he seemed to smile at it reverently, and then he spoke; "Thank you, old friend. We will all abide by your choice."

Then the sword seemed to melt into a ball of light, then reform itself, shrinking until it was too small for the Halcyon Knight, in his great age and size, to ever hope to effectively wield. It was just the right size, Meta Knight realized, for him.

The Halcyon Knight then offered it to him.

"Take hold of it, Meta." He instructed. "For this sword is your destiny, now."

Meta Knight reached for the blade without thinking. As he took it, that emptied space in him was refilled with that golden, ethereal feeling; the pleasant, protective warmth that covered even the coldest depths of his mind, and whose glow warded off the darkness.

He knew, instantly, that as long as he held this sword, he would never be alone again.

As long as he held this sword, he was more than just himself.

Then came the voice, though it was different, this time. Out here, in the waking world, (for surely all it had been was a dream?), it was no longer all-encompassing, no longer everywhere at once. It was contained, now, inside his own head. There was still something limitless and sidereal about it, but it roamed only within the boundaries of his mind. He had thought, at first, that it was a genderless voice, but upon hearing it again, he could swear that very faintly, there was something masculine.

_I have waited for you long, Wielder._ It said. _It brings me joy to meet you, now._

_How… how did you know it would be me?_ Meta Knight thought before he realized that he had.

_I did not. _said the sword, _But I knew you the moment we touched. I knew you to be the one whom I've been waiting for. And you have been waiting for me._

Meta Knight could honestly say that he had never, not once, expected this to happen. He hadn't been waiting for this. He hadn't dreamed of this.

But the sword knew his thoughts and feelings as well as he did, perhaps better, and the feeling it gave off in response was something akin to amusement.

_You have been waiting._ It maintained, _Though you did not realize it._

_What… should I call you?_

_You may call me by my name, Wielder._ the sword said simply.

_...If you'll call me by mine…_

"...Galaxia." He murmured aloud.

_Very well._

Meta Knight heard a soft purr and looked up at his lord, who watched him approvingly.

"You would do well to acquaint yourself with it as best you can, Scion." the Halcyon Knight told him. "The sword has a wealth of knowledge that will be at your disposal, now, as well as its powers. You must learn to work with it, and it with you."

"It is with me." Meta Knight said without thinking. "I can feel it, sir. I can feel it… inside me."

His ancestor nodded.

"Yes. Galaxia has bound itself to you. You are one, now, Meta. It will take time for you both to become accustomed, but you are one."

He was still thrown by the wonder, the absurdity of it all. How, of anyone, everyone, had it somehow been him? He didn't know. But Galaxia… it felt… so much more than just powerful. For the first time, Meta Knight felt like he _could_ become stronger, like he _could_ live up to his family's name, and someday, become all that he was meant to be. With this sword in his grasp… anything was possible.

With this sword, he wasn't so unsure, he wasn't so afraid, and he wasn't so weak. He felt ambition, he felt determination, he felt power. There was capability here. There was potential.

But underneath that superficial mass of aspiration and pretension…

There was acceptance.

It was Galaxia's acceptance, he realized, for the sword had accepted him.

And maybe…

Maybe with this sword, other people would accept him.

Maybe with this sword, Meta Knight could accept himself.


End file.
